If you’re just getting started with exercise, returning to a sport you played in high school, or getting back on track after an injury, here are the basic rules of the road:
- Don’t overwork your body. Long bouts of exhaustive exercise can wipe you out and also damage your immune response, increase the amount of cortisol and other stress hormones in your blood, increase oxidative stress and inflammation, negatively impact the flow of white blood cells and other infection-fighting cells in your blood, and cause DNA damage. Whew! All that and more: nothing can turn you off exercise faster than the way you feel after doing too much, too soon.
- Extreme exercise is risky. The stress that marathon runners and other athletic extremists put on their bodies places them at unnecessary risk of injury and other health problems. Doing too much exercise is nearly as bad as doing none at all.
- Pace yourself. Start out by walking vigorously enough that you get your heart rate up, but not so fast that you can’t talk. (I call this “walking like you’re late.”)
- If you’re an athlete who engages in extreme exercise, be sure to counter balance the stress of exercise on your body by eating foods that heal, getting enough sleep, and taking supplements to fill the gaps. And don’t think that because you exercise you should be able to eat lousy food. It’s actually the opposite. Extreme exercisers really need to fuel their bodies with healthy, healing foods.
Foods that Heal
Food can be as healing as medication. Or, it can be as toxic as a poison. The trick is to harness its amazing power rather than be destroyed by it. By choosing the right foods, you can break some of the bonds of chronic disease. You can positively change the action of your immune system, hormones, genes, and blood sugar. You can help slash your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, and many other diseases.
Did you know that as your weight goes up, the physical size of your brain goes down? Studies have shown that low-quality, high fat-diets and obesity are associated with depression. We’re going to change all that.
Since you may hear “diet” as a dirty word after so many years of sooooo many diets, let me assure you that the Brain Warrior’s Way* and the Omni Diet* give you lots to eat. You won’t get hungry because it is designed to keep you satiated. You get lots of plants (vegetables and fruit) plus protein.
Here’s how your plate will look: a huge, raw, multi-colored salad spiked with chunks of avocado and sprinkled with nuts or seeds covers half the plate; a lightly-cooked plant food such as braised cauliflower with basil fills another 20 percent of your plate and three to six ounces of lean protein such as wild salmon occupies the remaining 30 percent.
Say goodbye to donuts, please! And sodas and sugar and soy and gluten — all the foods that we now know can make you fat, sick, zap your energy, and shrink your brain.
Change your diet, change your life. The Brain Warrior’s Way and the Omni Diet can work for you. I promise.
*(Get 21% OFF with code TANA21)
